By way of keeping busy, he flicks through his box of old dance records, most so dishevelled that the album and artist names have worn away from the spines. Torn between The KLF and The Beloved, he settles on the latter, taking a second to appreciate the aged cardboard smell from the sleeve.

Crackles and pops beat out of time with the drum intro. The song’s called ‘The Sun Rising’. Will sits on the floor in front of the speakers and feels something slacken in him as the haunting chorus builds. A shaft of light shimmers as if it’s dancing somewhere above the record as it spins. Will can’t put his finger on why, but he knows it sounds better because it’s on vinyl. The best he can guess is that he’s listening to a perfectly shrunken sound wave, re-expanded for him in his own bedroom, not something that has, at some microscopic level, been reduced to zeros and ones. Surely nothing so natural as music can be made to conform to a choice of being just one thing or another, forced to assume sharp edges that have no business being there? Of course it sounds better on vinyl.

His relaxation is short-lived. In the freedom of thought that comes with listening to great music, he instinctively finds himself reaching once again into his pocket for the note. He wasn’t even thinking about reading it again, not consciously.

Within seconds, the contents of his pockets are tossed on to the bed: coins, tissues, packet of gum, train ticket, a fiver. Will pointlessly scratches through them, the record player shut off and slurring to a stop as if silence might aid his concentration. But he knew it the instant his hand had first reached for it: the note is gone.

He retraces his steps through the house in a panic. He upends the chair he sat on when talking to his mum. But the pointlessness of the search doesn’t surprise him.

With that piece of paper close to him, he’d felt almost like he was in control. Without it, he’s lost.

Did he ever have it? Does it exist? Has he gone that crazy?

He sits on the bottom stair and wraps his arms round his head.

Think. Think, man! THINK!

It was there after his Smugglers shift, when he stopped outside Nain’s before going to Alfie’s. And again when he was looking out to sea. He’d felt in his pocket. Next to his phone. He’d thought about reading it again. What, two hours ago? Maybe three?

That’s if it was ever real. If he hasn’t lost the plot completely.